Musings of a fantasy author in a wibbly wobbly world.

Farmers don’t have an easy life. When you consider the amount of work at times when most of us are tucked up in bed for very small profits, its hardly a popstar lifestyle.

Morrisons have reacted to complaints by producing a new brand which allows consumers to pay extra to donate 10p to farmers who produce milk. The details are still vague as far as I can see, but it does raise an interesting point.

What we have here is a supermarket chain not paying farmers enough to make a reasonable living from milk. The supermarket turning around and saying “Ok, we’ll charge the customers more and give them that”. I’d suggest with the massive profits these supermarkets make, we get the price staying the same for the consumer and the farmer still getting the extra 10p. We buy far more than just milk from supermarkets and maybe the answer here is to vote with our feet and tell the supermarkets that not only should they be giving their customers value, but also a fair price for the producers.

Or have I got that wrong?

If customers avoid stores not looking after our farming community properly, it won’t take long before they change. In the meantime, there’s an opportunity for any supermarket chain that wants to get into the top spot by implementing the above.

There is no doubt that farmers work incredibly hard. There is also no doubt that supermarkets make huge profits, so lets see both parties benefiting from this and let the supermarkets swallow the extra (deserved) payment to the farmers, after all, when we are customers in a supermarket, we are usually buying much more than milk and I’d suggest if the supermarket wants to see my money for the other things, it needs to consider that.